Rural Hospitals May Be Hit Hardest

[applegrove]

Rural Hospitals May Be Hit Hardest

March 21, 2020 at 1:08 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 121 Comments

https://politicalwire.com/2020/03/21/rural-hospitals-may-be-hit-hardest/

"SNIP.....

“Rural hospitals may not be able to keep their doors open as the coronavirus pandemic saps their cash, their CEOs warn, just as communities most need them,” NPR reports.

“Well before the COVID-19 threat, rural health care’s profitability had collapsed nationwide due to a combination of narrowing Medicare reimbursements, a larger share of patients lacking high-paying private insurance and the hollowing out of rural America. Given such pressures, more than 120 rural hospitals have been forced to close over the past decade.”

.....SNIP"

[guillaumeb]

1. Rural areas are often GOP territory.

How will these Trump supporters reconcile Trump's lies with the observable facts?

[applegrove]

2. D. L. Hughley said after Trump won in 2016 "Trump voters dislike black people

more than they like their own feet" (due to diabetes complications and lack of healthcare).

[guillaumeb]

12. That was brutal.

But supported by the evidence of past voting patterns.

[Wellstone ruled]

5. Hearing of issues from Family Members

living in Rural Towns. This Pandemic is about to smack the Conservative Governing City Councils and County Board members up side their heads. Got one of those later persons who loves his President and is about to get to reality check of his lifetime.

[guillaumeb]

13. It is so sad that a certain segment of the population thinks that they are immune

to the consequences of their own bad decisions.

[Wellstone ruled]

14. Always though this Cousin was a whole lot smarter

than this. But,years of denial has or is about to bite him where it will do the most good.

[guillaumeb]

15. In my experience, one can be professionally competent and still be

politically ignorant.

[Wellstone ruled]

17. Yes,but this one is

Uncle's replacement. Sometimes Family Heritage carries way more prevalence than ability. Nuff said. Been away from that county for sixty years,one of our better moves.

[doc03]

3. They closed two of our three local hospitals this summer. The ER can't handle

the present load. People have to be life flighted to Pittsburgh or Columbus every day.

[SWBTATTReg]

4. Yes unfortunately. My folks lived down in the Ozarks, and whenever a serious event ...

occurred, they had to relocate from down there (the local small hospital in Lebanon MO) to a larger one in Springfield MO. Perhaps they can reopen these rural hospitals that have been closed. There's going to be a demand perhaps for the rooms.

[Hoyt]

6. You wouldn't want to be in small rural hospitals for something serious.

They just don’t have the capabilities in most cases of serious illness.

[Lulu KC]

7. and their states rejecting Medicaid expansion

because it came from Obama. Or an association with pro-choice.

[Mike 03]

8. Waiting for it to hit here.

This is a fairly rural town in Arizona. It's also heavily populated by the most at-risk population. We also have a large assisted-care population. Some measures are being taken to limit gatherings. It's a real concern here. And yes, this is a very, very red town in the district that elects Paul Gosar time after time.

[OnDoutside]

9. Some of them won't be voting for Gosar in November.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

10. Ah, but Rotten Ronnie promised them trickle-down.

[lynintenn]

11. Tennessee holds the record. 20 counties without a hospital.

[MissB]

16. Several of our beach towns kicked people out today

Because they don’t have the facilities to deal with sick people. Airbnb? Vrbo? Hotel?

All evicted. Non residents not welcome.

[JHB]

18. It's what Republicans do. It's built into their operating system.

https://timeline.com/reagan-trump-healthcare-cuts-8cf64aa242eb

The Reagan administration also repeatedly assured the public that their cuts wouldn’t result in actual harm — people would get jobs, get better jobs, or states would make up the funds. But we now know that this was largely not the case.

So what happened after Reagan’s budget cuts? A million children lost reduced-price school lunches, 600,000 people lost Medicaid, and a million lost food stamps. Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) could only serve a third of those eligible. WIC provides low-income pregnant women and children with formula and healthy food staples. Nearly 500,000 lost eligibility for Aid to Families with Dependent Children (a less-stringent precursor to TANF). This caused a two-percent increase in the total poverty rate, and the number of children in poverty rose nearly three percent.

Lack of funding meant Public Health Service Hospitals and programs that deployed physicians to rural and urban areas were shut down. More than 250 community health centers were closed. Between 1980 and 1991, 309 rural hospitals and 294 urban hospitals were shuttered. Nearly one million Native Americans lost access to Indian Health Service care when eligibility was narrowed.

“History has taught us that such cuts in health and social service programs can have pervasive negative effects on health,” Williams writes. “Negative effects were soon evident in the health of pregnant women, children, and adults with chronic disease. There was an increase in women receiving no prenatal care. The overall decline in infant mortality slowed, and an increase in infant mortality in poor areas of 20 states was evident between 1981 and 1982. There was also an increase in preventable childhood diseases in poor populations.”